Mission Accomplished!

Check out the pictures!

We are back safe and sound at our hotel in Moshi. What and incredible adventure and challenge we shared! We left all of ourselves on the mountain. We are totally drained both physically and emotionally and only our desire to not be beat by Kilimanjaro kept us pushing up to the summit. We hope that our small steps up the mountain will help others take small steps everyday for our great planet and bring some awareness to our action campaign: www.agissonsvert.org.

The encounters we made throughout our journey allowed us to better appreciate Africa and its people. They are not just victims of poverty and neglect from the rest of the world, they are incredibly strong spirits that appreciate life, however meager, and all its splendour. Thank You Raymond, our lead guide and his aids, Andréa, Nicolas, et Haji for taking such great care of us visitors to your mountain. You did so everyday with a smile and passion that left us in awe. Thank you aswell to all the beautiful children that greeted us on our walk through their paradise and taught us how a simple touch or a smile could make any day magnificent.

And finally, thank you to all our supporters, sponsors, families and friends of our Vertical Marathon. You will all soon be invited to a soirée to see the snapshots of the beautiful moments we experienced. Until then take care of yourselves but also of others, everyday!

Alex, Ben, Em, Lily, Mike, Oury and Seb

2009-07-22

We are back safe and sound at our hotel in Moshi. What and incredible adventure and challenge we shared! We left all of ourselves on the mountain. We are totally drained both physically and emotionally and only our desire to not be beat by Kilimanjaro kept us pushing up to the summit. We hope that our small steps up the mountain will help others take small steps everyday for our great planet and bring some awareness to our action campaign: www.agissonsvert.org.

The encounters we made throughout our journey allowed us to better appreciate Africa and its people. They are not just victims of poverty and neglect from the rest of the world, they are incredibly strong spirits that appreciate life, however meager, and all its splendour. Thank You Raymond, our lead guide and his aids, Andréa, Nicolas, et Haji for taking such great care of us visitors to your mountain. You did so everyday with a smile and passion that left us in awe. Thank you aswell to all the beautiful children that greeted us on our walk through their paradise and taught us how a simple touch or a smile could make any day magnificent.

And finally, thank you to all our supporters, sponsors, families and friends of our Vertical Marathon. You will all soon be invited to a soirée to see the snapshots of the beautiful moments we experienced. Until then take care of yourselves but also of others, everyday!

Alex, Ben, Em, Lily, Mike, Oury and Seb

Stage 2 of the Vertical Marathon is complete!

We reached Africa's highest peak, Uhuru, the top of Mount Kilimanjaro at 8:44am. There is so little oxygen we sound tipsy on our sat phone and in fact we are intoxicated by our accomplishment! We are taking some photos to immortalize the moment. Nausea hit some team members hard but Emilie toughed it out, Lizanne kept going after throwing up a couple of times, and even Oury, our leader was sick to his stomach; not due to the altitude of course but bad beef jerkey. Benoit was the last to push up to the summit extremely short of breath but like the rest of us realized a lifechanging accomplishment. The descent should take only 2 days as opposed to the 6 it took to reach the summit. As you descend, you rediscover oxygen and the andrenaline high that goes along with it. For now we are soaking it in and enjoying this moment of perfection. And now that we have conquered Kilimanjaro we can't wait to devour her namesake, a 'Kilimanjaro' beer once we reach the bottom of the great mountain!

2009-07-21

After an evening of sleep at Camp 4, Barafu, at 4550m, we woke at 11:00 pm and are getting ready for our summit push. Michel who has been fighting a throat cold, accentuated by a depleted immune system at high altitudes, does not feel well enough to continue. The rest of us have butterflies in our stomachs, that we want throw up at times, but we are excited to get underway.

2009-07-20

Today we winded from the west flank to the south flank of Kilimanjaro up and over the Lava Tower at 4600m. In over 5 hours we arrived at Camp 3, called Barranco at 3900m. Only a 100m net gain in altitude but a great aclimatization for our push up the great mountain tomorrow. We are just below the glaciers in a little slice of heaven. Tomorrow we climb to camp 4 at 4600m, last stop before the summit of Kilimanjaro called Kibo!

Daily thought: Happy Birthday Michele, a good friend of ours and the mountains.

2009-07-19

We ascended to Camp 2 (Shira) at 3800m in just over 4 hours. The vistas are breathtaking. A cushion of clouds drapes the horizon as far as your eyes can see. Mt. Meru, our warmup conquest, pushes through the clouds in all it's splendor. The air is cool (5C) and the wind is brisk at a constant 30km/h. The expedition is progressing very well and we are more and more confident we will reach the summit as a team!

Daily tidbits: Alexandre, aka Jean-Coutu for his full stock of pharmaceuticals, took a 2 hour Swahili crash course today with our guide. Princess Emilie surpassed even her nickname today by shaving her legs at 4000m!

2009-07-18

Our first day on the big Mountain is complete. We left at 1800m this morning and via the Machame trail and arrived at Camp 1 at 3000m. Everyone is still on a high from our success at Mt. Meru. We will sleep in tents transported by our porters. There is even a toilet tent. Raymond, the head guide and his team are taking good care of us. They have showed us the climb plan on a map and we are anxious to get under way again. We leave in the morning for Camp 2 at 3800m. The vegetation is surprisingly abundant at this altitude. We are walking in the 'Moon Forest' which is like a fairy tale walk through another world. In talking about the glaciers with Raymond, we learned of the complete disappearance of the Ratz Glacier 3 years ago due to global warming. All other glaciers in and around Kilimanjaro are expected to disappear in the next 15 years!

Daily Tidbit: Benoit inflated his mattress for the first time tonight and after 15 minutes of huffing and puffing he discovered the second open valve on the far side of the mattress! As if a 1000m climb wasn't enough!

2009-07-17

A day of rest and shopping in Moshi before we head 100km up the big mountain to the summit of Kilimanjaro at 5895m over 6 days. We are ready and excited for this journey of a lifetime. Lizanne and Emilie, whose legs could barely stand still managed to turn heads in the town of Moshi since they hadn't realized the local women never show their bare legs. With the stares they got from the men and the women, they won't be sporting their short shorts again in Moshi.

Daily tidbit: Lizanne arrived late and missed the introduction to our new guide named Gudlok, so when everyone said 'see you later Gudlok', Lizanne said 'Good Luck to you too!'

2009-07-16

We are back in the comfort of our hotel in Moshi after our warmup climb of mini-Kili, Mt. Meru. We left camp this morning at 1am for our summit push. After 5 hours of constant climbing, Benoit and Sébastien were the first to reach the summit of the 4th highest mountain in Africa, followed by the rest of our crew 15 minutes later. It was a Victory in our warm-up test before we attack the big mountain. It was also Lizanne, Benoit, and Emilie's highest peak at some 4562m almost as high as Mt. Blanc in the Alps.

Daily tidbit: We were spoiled on our way down the mountain in a Land Rover for the last 1000m with our ranger through jungle trails. It was a wild ride standing most of the time, holding on for dear life, as we saw Antelopes, Wild Boar, Giraffes and Buffalos along the trail.

2009-07-15

Today we climbed through the jungle to Camp 2 of Mount Meru at 3500m. The wildlife and vegetation were even more spectacular than we imagined. We saw some curious monkeys and Emilie was 'attacked' by some carnivorous ants! Emilie and we are all fine and after a short break we continued on to the summit of little Meru at 3800m. After a half night's sleep we will depart at 1am for the summit of the main peak of Mount Meru at 4560m.

Daily tidbit: Lizanne continues to impress with her 3rd day of perfectly colour coordinated outfits.

2009-07-14

We have arrived at Mount Meru basecamp called Miriakamba Hut at 2500m. The approach was a sublime 4 hour trek through Arusha park where we saw Giraffes, Zebras, Buffalos, and a Monkey. Luckily we were escorted by an armed guide to ward off buffalo attacks!

And as Michel discovered, don't forget clothing items when you come to Tanzania as he has been unable to find a bathing suit that fits, even the XL is 2 sizes too small.

2009-07-13

After an exhausting 27 hour journey, we enjoyed a local beer not surprsingly named 'Kilimanjaro'. Then we crashed in a Moshi hotel to sleep off the jet lag. After surely one of our last good night's sleep, we are having breakfast together before a relaxing day visiting Moshi, the regional capital. Interestingly the annual host of the Kilimanjaro Marathon and now our Vertical Marathon aswell!

Marathon Vertical is heading for the highest summit of Africa with 5 guest climbers!

Click here to view the team members

Our goal: 20 000$ in donation!! This will allow us to make a significant contribution to Équiterre to support thier actions as well as launch our Agissonsvert.org campain on a wide scale.

We thank you for your support!

L'Équipe de Marathon Vertical 2009